Player files $500,000 complaint against BetRoyal NEWS AND UPDATES

SBR Justin investigated the available facts of the complaint. In 2004 a group of players were invited by BetRoyal management to trade prices and betting odds at BetRoyal against other sportsbooks . The manager who had made the arrangement had taken a position with BetUS (SBR rating D+) before this issue emerged.

BetRoyal management would often solicit sharp players to bet off action they did not want while offering them special low juice, or even no juice lines, to increase liquidity. For example, if the sportsbook felt it had too much exposure on one play or wanted to gamble on the other team, it would make the applicable vig pricing appealing for their players that were known to trade on the sports betting market. The sportsbook was aware that at least two individuals were placing wagers on this account. The deposited funds initially lost but the invested $85,000 in deposits eventually earned a balance of $586,000. Several days before SBGglobal (SBR rating D-) completed its buyout of BetRoyal last year, the Royal website was taken off of the servers. When the site returned on the SBG platform, all winnings were removed from the account.

During the investigation, Royal, which was known for odd player arrangements and high risk bookmaking models, claimed that it had an agreement with the account holder that he would never take out winnings – only deposits. Royal claimed that the players were using some sort of hedging strategy where they would guarantee that they lost money at Royal, and won at other books. Royal offered no solid proof of this, often referring to the deal as something arranged independently by the manager that had moved on. The account holder denies there was any such agreement to “not withdraw winnings.” He rightfully points out that such an arrangement is not logical and describes a scenario where the account could only lose money. SBR told Royal that their explanation was not believable. The account holder believes BetRoyal erased the winnings in order to take $500,000 in liabilities off the books before selling to SBG Global.